100 years after Triangle fire, horror resonates

FILE - In this March 25, 1911 file photo, firefighters work to put out the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York's Greenwich Village neighborhood. One hundred years ago, horrified onlookers watched as workers leapt to their deaths from the raging fire in the garment factory. The fire killed 146 workers, mainly young immigrant women and girls, and became a touchstone for the organized labor movement, spurred fire-safety laws and shed light on the lives of immigrant workers. (AP Photo/File)
— AP

FILE - In this March 25, 1911 file photo, firefighters work to put out the fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York's Greenwich Village neighborhood. One hundred years ago, horrified onlookers watched as workers leapt to their deaths from the raging fire in the garment factory. The fire killed 146 workers, mainly young immigrant women and girls, and became a touchstone for the organized labor movement, spurred fire-safety laws and shed light on the lives of immigrant workers. (AP Photo/File)
/ AP

Meanwhile, the elevator shuttled up and down carrying as many workers as could cram into it. Weiner joined the crush for the last elevator but was pushed back. She testified that she grabbed the elevator cable and threw herself in, landing on girls' heads. She was the last person out of the burning building.

The jury heard from 155 witnesses before returning a verdict of not guilty.

"I believed that the door was locked at the time of the fire," one juror said. "But we couldn't find them guilty unless we believed they knew the door was locked."

Workers' advocates continued to blame Blanck and Harris, who had resisted a union drive in 1909.

Blanck's granddaughter Susan Harris said she is saddened when people demonize her grandfather, who died before she was born

"It's really important for them, I think, to have a villain," she said.

Blanck and Harris were on the 10th floor when the fire started and were able to escape to the roof. But several of Susan Harris' relatives died in the fire, including Jacob, Essie and Morris Bernstein, members of Blanck's wife's family who worked at Triangle.

Harris lives in Los Angeles but is spending March in New York to take part in Triangle commemorations. An artwork she created to honor the fire victims - made of antique shirtwaists and handkerchiefs - will be displayed at the New York City Fire Museum for a month.

One witness to the Triangle workers' death plunges was Frances Perkins, who later became the first female Cabinet member when President Franklin Roosevelt appointed her secretary of labor. Perkins was having tea nearby and heard the commotion. She ran to the scene as the first body hit the ground.

"That fire is the event that changed her life and that really changed the course of American history," said Kirsten Downey, author of a book about Perkins, "The Woman Behind the New Deal."

Perkins was appointed to the Factory Investigating Commission, convened in response to the Triangle fire, and the panel held hearings all over New York state before drafting 20 laws aimed at improving workplace safety. Some of the new laws required fire drills, set occupancy limits in buildings and required exit signs to be clearly posted.

"Policies that were enacted because of that fire permeate American workplaces now," Downey said.

Days after the Triangle fire, 100,000 mourners marched in a funeral procession through the streets of New York, while another 250,000 lined the route. Their grief built support for the right of garment workers to unionize.

"It created a strong garment workers union," said Bruce Raynor, president of Workers United, the 21st-century heir to the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. "It helped to really start the modern labor movement."

He said the Triangle fire commemoration resonates strongly today, given the labor struggles across the country and in Wisconsin, where a law passed this month limits public workers' collective bargaining rights.

"One hundred years later, 150,000 people are protesting in Madison, Wis., over the same issue," he said: "the right of working people to organize."